Nomadic Gamer

anchor of bazzul

Gaming

Wait, I won Something?!

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This week and next week make up the crunch time before my next articles are due for Beckett MOG, so I didn’t spend very much time in EQ2 last night. I did get some nice time in Wizard 101, and once Wpus and Kasul returned from work (we can’t all play video games for a living!) we headed off to knock out a few instances before it was time for bed. We started out with Obelisk of Ahkzul – still aiming for that legendary healer shield that has yet to drop. How many months have we been doing this instance for now with no sign of the shield? I’m not sure, but it’s been a LOT. The instance is fast and it rewards a void shard so I can’t complain that much, but I’d still love to see that shield drop.

Afterward we wandered over to Anchor of Bazzul, this is a fairly simple and quick zone and it rewards two void shards at the end of it, making it quite worth while. Plus every so often the Gods of Norrath smile down on one of the group members – and a nice item drops. We got a lower level swashbuckler master which I’m sure was worth a great deal (congratulations Wpus on winning that) and the charm pictured to the right hand side also dropped. My illusionist has been under geared for quite some time. Not under geared in the sense that she’s wearing mastercrafted at level 80, but she’s only sporting T1 gear, owns 1 master spell, and only has 108 achievement points. She was power leveled to 80 and I’ve been slowly gearing her up ever since. It was no great surprise that one of her charm items is the caster reward from Everfrost with + spell crit on it, and the other charm was actually the mana battery which is a collection reward. No special stats at all and so I rolled need on the beautiful charm that dropped last night – what’s more, Wpus graciously declined, and I won it. Now, ideally I’d like an item that has + spell crit on it, I’m only sitting at 52% currently, and I have a long way to go. The stats on the charm and the 2% reduced cast time is very nice, and I won’t be complaining at all. We grabbed our two void shards and decided to head off to do the daily double before we called it a night, it was Deep Forge.

Deep Forge has never been one of my favorite zones. In fact none of the Lavastorm zones are that appealing to me. I’ve still yet to do the quests from the revamp (hey, maybe a goal for today!) and when someone mentions Najena’s Hollow Tower I visibly shudder. On the plus side as much as I dislike Deep Forge it is a fast zone and being the daily double meant we could get four shards from that one zone including some coin. Arysh also had not done the quest that rewards a fairly nice charm with +2 spell crit on it, so off we went. No deaths, and the final named dropped without too many issues (and also dropped that really horrible 2h hammer that always drops). Headed back to the hall to stash all of the no trade loot into my bank so I can transmute it one day in the future, and called it a night. Even though we didn’t play a whole lot, it was still fun and it was nice to finally get a nice upgrade.

Speaking of which. 20 more shards and Ellithia (the mystic) will own her complete set of T2 void gear (cheers) finally. Last night Arysh gathered enough shards to get her 2nd piece of T2 – pants. That just leaves the robe, hat, and shoulders left. I don’t even want to start thinking about how many shards that still is. I also worked on the TSO chapter quests a little bit, trying to inch myself closer to the rest of the guild. Hopefully we’ll be on chapter 5 soon where it makes us do all of the instances. Not my most favorite part, but it’ll be nice to be making some progress.

I hope everyone has an amazing week, I know it’s been filled with a lot of great stuff since E3 is going on right now and before you know it, Fan Faire will be on. I’ll see you in Norrath!

Gaming

Taking in the View

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We (the guild of three plus one) may not have done as many instances yesterday as we did on Friday, but we sure did have fun – and still managed to get a fair amount done. While the boys headed off to Crypt of Agony for yet another ‘sad panda’ run as they’ve been termed (meaning no, the farseer did not drop, and nor did the cardiocutter) I stayed behind and played some Vanguard on the PC (more about that in another post). Afterwards we headed back to Evernight Abby to complete the bits that we didn’t do the night before because it was getting too late and I was feeling quite under the weather.

Well, lesson learned. It’s a bad idea to kill the first named in a persistent zone leave, come back, and think that you can complete the rest of the zone without any issues. Apparently killing the first named unlocks another named in behind the coffin room – and that closed up once we left the zone. We ended up missing him all together. After doing Guk the night before this zone was a breeze, and also a lot of scripted fun. During the later portion you turn into a vampire yourself to defeat the final boss, and you have to run away every time he calls forth the sunlight. You (as in the group) all also have to aquire special vampire moves that you use on him during the fight. LOTS of fun. We wiped once because I wasn’t curing the main tank when he got snared just before the sunlight hit, but once I started taking care of that it all went much easier.

I don’t remember anything of note dropping, but it was the daily double (or as my server calls it MoTD – mission of the day) so we got a fair amount of shards from it. Oh, also if you kill the key mob and then log out you lose your key and that extra shard too. Not impressed.

Having completed that zone and the quests from Loping that were associated with it (there are a few and they all reward really nice items) we took a bit of a break. Folks had real life to attend to (gasps, it happens some times!) and when we met up later in the evening we headed directly to Obelisk of Ahkzul and Anchor of Bazzul. These last two zones would give me enough shards to finally purchase the T2 breastplate for Ellithia (mystic) leaving only one more piece to obtain – the shoulders (and they’re a whole 27 shards so that will be a while). This also allowed me to finally get my 5 set bonus, which is a 2.4% chance to proc 15 seconds of 15% heal crit chance. Nice, but would have been nicer on a warden. My 5 set bonus used to do with overloaded heals but they changed it some time ago.

The coercer needs 5 more shards in order to get her 2nd piece of T2 gear. It feels like it’s taking forever but I have to remember that she shares the account with the bard, who was hording shards for a bit to get a few pieces of her T1 gear too. If I had not of been trying to gear up two characters on the same account at the same time it would have been a lot easier.

We keep checking on Venekor to see if he’ll drop a trophy for us but he’s apparently pretty camped on Kithicor. As the evening wore on I decided to stay put in the guild hall and work on transmuting some more (shudders) while the boys headed out to do those guild raids that no one does any more. They did all of the ones available I believe, and while they’re not a great deal of guild status unless you actually have 12 people, we did move along a little, and then of course there was achievement experience for defeating the named and completing the guild writs. I’m not sure if any armor molds or craft materials dropped, but I always thought that this was one feature in game that could use a serious overhaul and maybe more people would use it. I don’t even really know of any guilds who take advantage of the guild raids on a weekly (or 3 day as lock out timers go) basis. If you do, let me know!

All in all it was a nice day with a few instances and lots of fun. I got a few bits of upgraded gear (legendary) as did Wpus, but I think that was it. The really nice stuff still eludes us for now. It’s bound to drop sooner or later if we keep running the zones though! At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.

Today the Festival of Unity begins at 3pm EST and you’ll find me there as Pensato on Antonia Bayle. There’s also a guild meeting later on for Safe Haven in Vanguard, so I’ll more then likely be boxing the two events, hehe. I’ll see you in Norrath! Or Telon!

Gaming

Did We Just Pull That Off??

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Yesterday was the first real day we’ve had Kasul around on his assassin and boy did we take advantage of it. I’ve been constantly grouped up with Wpus and Ultann (and Ultann’s boxed Inquisitor, Nocbot) since late December on the Kithicor server. By now we know how we group, I know what to expect. If things are too easy chances are I’ll go screaming into the next room shouting “BUGABOO” at the top of my lungs and training us. They know that.

Adding a fourth person to the mix (and thus filling out our group nicely since I box the mystic + dirge / illusionist) was something I had a few reservations about. Not because Kasul isn’t amazing but because we (the original three) know how to play together. We’ve been taking down content with three of us that I was exceptionally proud to do. We DID have a lack of dps though, and it was noticeable.

Last time we headed to Guk we couldn’t make it past the third named. Or rather, the stairs of mobs that would never end. It took forever just to get to that part to begin with, so we called it.

Yesterday we bravely headed to Guk once more – and WE CLEARED THE ZONE. That’s right. That’s how much of a difference it made to add a fourth to our 3. So now I call us the 3 plus one guild. Not only did we clear the zone but Ultann managed to get the fungus spores that go for 600p on our server, as well as a new master spell.

I was impressed. I was happy. I can only hope that the others were too.

That wasn’t all we did though, oh no of course not. We did our usual Crypt of Agony run and no neither item that we’re after dropped. After that I suggested that we spend our time doing zones that we don’t typically do. We’ll have plenty of time to do the ‘other’ zones while Kasul is at work. So we did Obelisk of Akhzul, Anchor of Bazzul, Najena’s Hollow Tower, Halls of the Fallen (Guk), The Crucible,  and then after all of that our little 3 plus one group headed to Evernight Abby in Loping Plains which was the daily double.

Unfortunately by the time we got there it was after midnight and I still haven’t been feeling the greatest lately, so we cleared the first named and then I camped out in the zone so that we could finish it off tomorrow (today). Not a big deal, and I’m looking forward to it. Hopefully everyone had an incredible time, even if they all teased me to no end. Why?

Well, throughout most of the zones (Crucible, Najena’s) nothing but the dirge, troubador, paladin, shadowknight loot would drop. Every single time. Of course I happened to be on my illusionist, which is ALWAYS the case, the dirge who didn’t play even got a master to drop while the illusionist has one single little master to her collection. Ah, the RGN is a cruel mistress some days. Wpus, Ultann, and Kasul had no end of material for teasing me. Each time we defeated a named it was almost guaranteed that it would drop loot for the dirge I wasn’t playing.

I did make off with two nice items, a ranged item for the illusionist as well as a new cloak with a void beast proc on it (that I adore, even if procs are going to be nerfed and it will no longer crit). It was one of those amazing incredible days that I love so much. Good gaming, good friends, great conversation and we got a lot done. Now I just need to work at finishing off those achievement points.

Happy gaming, and I’ll see you all in Norrath!

Gaming

Venril Sathir and Other Goodness

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Pictured above is my paladin, with the amulet of necropotence and a nice sword from fear. She’s obviously got some personality good / evil issues, but I’m loving the new look.

Last night was a hodge podge of activity, starting with getting a few steps done on the mystic epic. I managed to get my three skeleton updates, with some help of course. They included skeletons in Jarsath Wastes, Karnor’s Castle, and Kunzar Jungle. Now I’ve got a group instance to do where I have to defeat some heroics, and then more NPC to talk to.

Out of the blue I found myself playing the neglected troubador I have, she’s been at 80 forever, owns both the dirge and troubador fabled epic, and yet I rarely play her. Not because I don’t enjoy the class (I certainly do) but having SO many alts means my time is always split between the flavour of the month. I wish I were one of those people who only had one or two alts instead of the massive army I have now. I’ve said this a lot. I’ve even contemplated deleting all of the ones that I have, but there’s been so much work put into them I can’t bring myself to do it.

The troubador headed to Obelisk of Ahkzul and then over to Anchor of Bazul, which is also within the Moors. I love Anchor, it involves fights that are more then just hack and slash. One of them requires you to possess the body of a void creature to defeat a named. Another has you form a triangle of void portals around a named as you fight it, dispelling its immunity.

In Obelisk I actually won a (useful) master! The first T8 Master I’ve seen in a very long time. Since that particular zone is on a ‘smart loot’ system, it was nice. Happens to be my group haste buff.

Nothing else of note dropped, but afterwards I decided to join in on a Venril Sathir raid.

I know, what was I thinking. It actually didn’t go too bad, even though we didn’t defeat him this time around. Let me explain.

There were only two groups, 90% of them alts to a raid guild. This raid is easier to do with less people, because the less people you have to worry about their power going below a certain mark, or not clicking statues, or not using a cube on the named, or any other number of things that can go wrong, the better. This was my first time doing this encounter, I’d never seen Venril before (aside from his home in EQ) and it was a lot of fun. The entire raid has to keep their power between 30-60% while Venril is ‘watching’ you, or you’ll cause the raid to wipe. You also need to instantly cure a noxious dot, or you’ll wipe a raid. While all this goes on, throughout the fight there are two other important debuffs that will land randomly on two players. One will decrease their power by huge amounts if they cast so much as a simple spell. The other does the opposite. Of course this means you’ll be unable to hover between the 30-60% so when you’re hit with these debuffs so you call it out in raid (typically) and do nothing for the duration. This also means that the remainder of the raid who does NOT have these debuffs can burn Venril Safely, as long as they keep watching their power and that noxious.

If  a single person is not watching everything that’s going on, the raid wipes.

We managed to get him down to 40% with our two groups before I had to call it a night. The raids started fairly late to begin with and since I’m always up exceptionally early I was starting to fall asleep in my chair. They’re going to make another attempt at it on Saturday I believe, adding a third group of guild DPS to the mix because the fight was taking a good length of time as it was. We had three healers, four bards, a few enchanters and only one brigand with no other DPS classes. It was still great fun.

You don’t always have to win in order for an evening to be fun. Especially since I’d never been there before. I understand that RoK raids are ‘old’ now, that there’s better raids to be had and better gear out there, but for myself it was still a great night with a lot of fun. I’m not sure if I want to get into raiding full time or just continue to pop in here and there when I feel like it (very casual), I’ll just have to see.

I hope everyone has a fantastic Friday today. I’ll be off to see Wolverine later on in the afternoon, woot.

Gaming

Anchor of Bazzul

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Restless last night, though it was no fault of any games. Just too much on my mind as happens this time of year. First of all, happy birthday to Calreth a good friend of mine on Antonia Bayle. One of the most amazing people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. I joked with Tipa about playing ‘eenie meenie miney mo’ to try to figure out which character it was that I was going to play for the evening, but it wasn’t really a joke. I couldn’t settle down so I logged off for a few with the intentions of doing some art of some sort. Took far too long to come up with an idea for that, and after fumbling around with an image I eventually decided I wanted to do, I was asked if I wanted to head to the Anchor of Bazzul, a zone in The Moors of Ykesha that I’d not yet been to.

I was asked to go on my troubador, who had not yet seen any TSO content per say. This zone doesn’t reward any void shards, but it was great aa and a few bits of interesting loot (that no one wanted). Goudia got her 141st aa (yes, I am that much of a slacker) and here’s the kicker – I JUST betrayed to a troubador and what do I win? 

A DIRGE master. 

GAH!

I swear, if I didn’t have bad luck in games, I’d have no luck at all. 

The zone has a really fun encounter (that’s also sort of bugged) where you have to clear around The Keeper of the Banished, and then each member of the group clicks one of the cells where the Banished are being held, and morphs into the creatures much like you do for the Mark of The Awakened trials all uber and what not. You defeat the mob (and here’s where it gets tricky) once the mob is defeated you each have to click off the illusion, and then you have to defeat the banished guys that you just possessed. Apparently if it’s done correctly and all 6 of the banished forms are used, you’ll get a chest. More often then not though there is no chest reward at all and this is just a ‘get by me to the next stage’ of a zone. It was still a lot of fun though.

The zone itself was fairly easy. A few named have kickbacks and my Internet decided I was no longer going to play without LOTS of lag, so I left the group a few minutes to reset some computer stuff. Annoying. Everything worked fairly well after that. The final named required members to move three objects to the center of the room surrounding the named in a triangle pattern, we had enough dps that the group members only had to do this once. All in all fun zone even though nothing of any note dropped. A healer cloak that no one wanted, and a bunch of other trash. 

It would be really nice if I knew which character to settle on, but as of yet that hasn’t happened. It’s really hard to gear up 5+ characters, get them all their epics, and make sure they can all handle whatever it is they need to handle based on their class. Getting masters is also frustrating. So no progress in that direction yet. 

Still, a fun evening over all. I think the only instances I have not been to yet now are the ones in Loping Plains.

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